Customer service is a core part of many businesses. When customers reach out to or for customer service, quite often it’s about a problem or an issue that requires a resolution. Customers are typically looking for someone who is going to listen to and understand the issue at hand. They are looking for someone who understands that there is a sense of urgency, the issue needs to be treated with a level of priority and that it will be addressed in a timely manner. Customers are also looking for accountability; someone to take charge, be responsible and follow through from start to finish to ensure the problem or issue reaches final resolution or is escalated appropriately and promptly up the chain until reaching that resolution.

Talk is cheap! Customers want results!

It’s important to note that this is not the time to upsell or downsell to customers. Upselling or downselling is not a solution or resolution to a problem or issue. These are retention tactics, plain and simple! Sure, some customers may be taken in by the tactic while others who understand the retention tactic may manipulate it to their advantage. For real problems or issues, this will likely infuriate customers, especially patrons. Fair warning: If you’re going to play with fire, you’re going to get burned! Put your customers first! Focus on resolving the issue at hand in a timely, effective and efficient manner. Don’t give your customers the runaround and don’t make them jump through hoops. In the end, it can have serious repercussions on your business and its reputation.

Any business that is defined, in whole or in part, by the quality of their customer service, their customer service reputation and customer satisfaction ratingMUST step up and provide an exceptional, premier level of customer service to their customers not only to differentiate themselves from their competitors but also to demonstrate and prove to their customers that they have earned and deserve their customers’ business. Anything less is simply unacceptable.

As a business owner, it’s vital to stay away from using monies from your business to pay for personal expenses even if you intend to reimburse the company later. You run the risk of piercing the corporate veil and getting into serious trouble with the IRS and other tax agencies should you and/or your business undergo an audit (ex: claiming business deductions for non-legitimate business expenses, failure to report and pay taxes on taxable income).

Depending on how your business entity is setup (ex: Limited Liability Company (single-member LLC, Partnership, LLC taxed as sub-chapter S), Corporation (C-Corp or sub-chapter S)), as an owner, you may be entitled to income in the form of a draw (owner’s draw), guaranteed payments, salary, equity distributions and so forth. Outside of these legitimate sources of income and receiving reimbursement for legitimate business expenses (you should have detailed expense reports with the appropriate business receipts), you should not use monies from your business to cover any personal expenses. This includes paying for personal travel, personal trips & vacations, personal entertainment (ex: tickets to shows or events), major purchases or down payments on major purchases for personal use (ex: cars, homes, equipment) and so forth. It should go without saying that this applies to all owners of the business.

Keep in mind that providing an “allowance” to owners under a written agreement does not make it acceptable to ignore applicable business/tax laws and best practices. Allowances should either cover legitimate accountable business expenses which should require detailed expense reports and business receipts or if for non-accountable expenses, allowances should be treated and reported as taxable income to the recipient. Be sure to consult with your general counsel and/or your CPA firm/Accountant to ensure you and your business are compliant with all applicable business/tax laws and reporting requirements.

As we prepare to close out the year, business owners should take the time to evaluate their current business operations to determine what investments they need to make in their business heading into the New Year and begin planning & budgeting for those investments. This includes investing in staff (ex: hiring additional employees, employee training & education, health & wellness programs, incentives & retention programs), investing in technology (ex: computers, servers, software, storage, network equipment) and investing in infrastructure (ex: office/office space, furniture, fixtures) just to name a few.

While planning and budgeting for potential investments does not guarantee that business owners will be able make those investments into their business at any specific time (ex: due to financial constraints, weak business performance, unforeseen circumstances), business owners should still be proactive rather than reactive. Perhaps the investments may not occur in the first or second quarter of the year but may be possible in the third quarter.

In some situations, business owners may need to front-load the investments to achieve future business performance gains. For instance, if your business is a design firm relying heavily on up-to-date technology, but you are running outdated computers and software, you’ll need to make investments in technology to get updated computers and software NOW, so you can get the work done. If you can’t get the work done, your business will be unable to stay afloat. Likewise, business owners may need to hire an additional employee to help in critical areas to get work done and meet timetables. The successful completion of a client project can result in future projects (and additional income) but failure could mean the loss of the client (and loss of significant income). In these situations, business owners MUST make the investments immediately rather than postpone or delay them to a later date.

To help manage the business, business owners should utilize financial projections. Income projections (and if needed, cash flow projections) can be an extremely useful tool in helping to manage the business but keep in mind that projections are exactly that – A PROJECTION. The more reliable financial information that you have available, the better your projections will be; however, projections are NOT SET IN STONE!

Business owners who are unfamiliar with financial projections should work with their lead or senior Accounting/Finance person (ex: CFO, Director of Finance, Accounting Manager, Head of Accounting/Finance) to create/prepare financial projections for the business for the upcoming year. If you don’t have a lead or senior Accounting/Finance person, consult with your Accountant or CPA Firm for guidance. While preparing financial projections is not overly difficult, it does require a level of experience.

Now that the holidays have arrived and with year-end fast approaching, as a business owner, you may be considering distributing year-end bonuses to employees as a show of appreciation for their passion and dedication to the business this past year. It’s important to remember that bonuses are treated as taxable income and should be processed and reported accordingly.

You should process your year-end bonuses through payroll and follow standard payroll practices to ensure the proper tax withholding for federal income tax, state & local income tax and FICA (Medicare & Social Security Tax). Generally, bonuses can either be run as an additional payroll outside of your normal payroll cycle or added to one of your normal year-end payrolls.

If you plan on running an additional payroll, check with your payroll company on how to submit the additional bonus payroll. Your payroll company will usually require bonus payrolls (or additional payrolls outside of your normal payroll cycle) to be submitted several days in advance of your regularly scheduled payroll. Pay close attention to the payroll submission due dates to ensure your bonus and year-end payrolls are submitted on a timely basis. Also, make sure your business bank account is adequately funded to cover your added year-end business expenditures.

If you have questions or concerns regarding the proper handling of bonus income, check with your payroll representative and/or your business tax professional (Accountant/CPA firm).